Role

Maryland junior midfielder Kevin Cooper avoided a lengthy suspension for his role in an on-field fight in the Terps' 11-10 loss to North Carolina last Saturday and will sit out Saturday's Atlantic Coast Conference showdown with Virginia. Cooper was ejected after fighting with Tar Heels redshirt sophomore midfielder Greg McBride with 40 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. Per NCAA regulations, a player ejected for fighting is suspended for his team's next game. Maryland announced Wednesday afternoon that after further review, the ACC decided not to hand down further punishment.

If nothing else, Charlize Theron hopes her new movie will make people forget the orange dress. The tall, beautiful actress with the ballerina legs has been haunted by that orange dress - a Vera Wang design - since she wore it at the 2000 Oscars. The form-fitting gown apparently was so stunning and memorable that Theron believes that it actually hurt her career. "I can't tell you how many times I've auditioned for a role, only to have my agent come back and say, "Listen, Charlize, they saw you in the orange dress and they don't think you can do it."

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Kirsten Dunst tells a story about the strangeness of fame. She was 12 and had landed what would be her breakthrough role as an aging woman in a child's body in Interview With the Vampire. At the time, she lived with her family near the Warner Brothers lot that is famous as a way station for stage parents and their child-star offspring and as a hotbed of competition. One day, Dunst recalled, a young girl approached her and bragged, "My agent says I'm going to be the next Kirsten Dunst."

DETROIT -- The fate of manager Phil Regan, to be determined at the end of the season, will affect the entire organization. But his future, whether he is retained, reassigned or fired, means more to some players than to others.If Regan is let go, Cal Ripken still will be here, and so will Mike Mussina, Chris Hoiles, Bobby Bonilla. That is not necessarily true for some of the more replaceable Orioles, such as utility man Jeff Huson, whose job status could be linked directly to that of Regan.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Ricky Bones has made consecutive starts on Opening Day and pitched for a team that won the World Series. He's also ridden the escalator down to the minor leagues, with no easy climb back up. If nothing else, Bones has proved he can adapt to any situation. Ace in a rotation, viable option in the minors. Full-time starter, full-time reliever. Just give him the ball. The Orioles have handed it to Bones, signing him to a one-year contract in late December with no assurances where his role is concerned.

WASHINGTON -- Her 50 years in the theater have brought Marian Seldes lots of choice roles in lots of long-running shows, but few have transported her to the heights of her star turn in Edward Albee's "Three Tall Women.""I've been, for want of a better phrase, a supporting actress so much of my life. The opportunity to, in a sense, be the play -- the character without which there is no play -- is so fulfilling for me that I cannot express it," the actress says of her role in the 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The first pitcher to arrive at the Orioles' spring training complex on Thursday, left-hander Buddy Groom might be the first to leave for an extended period. Groom's wife, Angela, is expecting the couple's fifth child, and doctors will induce labor this week. Groom will fly home to Red Oak, Texas, on Thursday afternoon after working out at the ballpark. He will return two days later. "I can't afford to be gone any longer than that," he said. Groom led the club in saves with 11 last season, but when he looks in a mirror, he's more likely to see a father of five than a closer.

Of all the operatic roles you might expect to hear Renata Scotto sing, that of Klytamnestra, the murderous, maniacal queen of Thebes in Richard Strauss' "Elektra," might well be the last. The famed soprano, long associated with the likes of Mimi, Lucia, Violetta, Butterfly and a host of other sympathetic, endearing characters, took the plunge into the mezzo - even contralto - depths of Klytamnestra for the first time Saturday night at the Lyric Opera House. Scotto laughs about the way she is making her Baltimore debut.

"Hairspray" is the product that just keeps giving. In 1988, John Waters added indelibly to his in-a-class-by-itself filmography with this tale of youth, love, race relations, and irrepressible dancing in early-1960s Baltimore. Fourteen years later, that movie became the basis for a Broadway musical, which, in turn, was adapted into a Hollywood musical in 2007. Now comes another version, "Hairspray: In Concert," which will be presented this week by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

"No one with a history of back trouble should attempt the part of Merrick as contorted," writes Bernard Pomerance in a prefatory comment to his play "The Elephant Man." Good advice, since the role of title character John Merrick is a hideously deformed "show freak" who lives in Victorian London during the latter part of the 19th century. Under Susan G. Kramer's able direction, the student-alumni actors in the play at Howard Community College manage to bring off a stalwart, if uneven, production that captures the essence of the drama but struggles with its complexities and textures.